Grapefruit Peel Extraction: Crazy Good

I want to share an amazing extraction I did with leftover grapefruit peels. It was so amazing, pure, and alluring that everyone I showed it to insisted on rubbing it on themselves!

I took these grapefruit skins with remnants of flesh still attached and cut them into small strips to dry faster.

The peels could be extracted in their fresh state as well, but the volume of peel would be too large to extract with a reasonable amount of alcohol. Additionally, the fresh peel would have a lot of water that would be left behind in the final product. So what we want to do is dry the skins out nicely before extracting just the good parts.

I had a lot of peel to dry so I used the oven to expedite the process. When the peels were nearly dry but still softish I chopped them into smaller pieces and continued to dry until all moisture was gone.

I left 0ne-ounce as it was in the chopped shape and another one-ounce was made into a chunky powder using a food processor.

I made two different textures to test how differently the alcohol extraction outcomes would be. With the larger chunks was obvious that more alcohol would be required to fill the big spaces between the pieces compared with a relatively tight pack of the finer powder like texture. So would the extra alcohol be beneficial and allow maximum extraction?

The results clearly showed the finer texture with less alcohol (on the right) provided a larger final yield. Having said that, the one on the left is slightly more concentrated, but that didn’t make much difference.

Lastly, I made another batch and let it concentrate into a thicker syrup. This was amazing! This was something you caught a whiff of and had to rub some on your wrist……amazing. There are so many great ways this concentrate could be used. How about you make it, experiment, and tell me what amazing things you came up with?

(Edit note and important correction. While the process is the same either way, it is recommended to remove all pith from the skins. While I love the color and aroma of the way this was made, I subsequently learned the pith is what was making it much more bitter then it needed to be. Please learn from my mistakes and make some awesome stuff.)

What temp did you go with to dry the peel? Thanks. Also, my extractions seem to come out darker than expected. It starts out proper as a tincture but when it get closer to the point of switching it into the silicon container it’s already rso dark. Any suggestions on how to get the golden was? Thank you and I love all the hard work you have done to educate people like me. The source is awesome!

Hi Justin,
Thank you very much for the kind words and I am very happy that you found good use from my work. As for the grapefruit, I used around 200F in the over to dry, but it’s not a good idea. I was rushing it, and as you probably know by now if you rush an extraction it will punish you for it. It should be dried naturally or in a dehydrator for the best and sharpest results.

If you are getting dark extractions like RSO when trying to make a cleaner smokeable concentrate it either has to do with your material or process. Following the instructions in my blog posts closely should explain everything on how to get there. If you have a specific question it might be easier. I watch the user group on FB a lot and there is always a lot of good information in there and the guys from the company are usually in there trying to help out answer questions. Are you in the FB group “The Source by ExtractCraft User Group”? That would also be a good place to fine tune your process. I hope this helps!